Michael Taylor: MT on MSU

The GoBlueWolverine Staff

10/06/2005

Michael Taylor was the Michigan quarterback in the 1988 Michigan-Michigan State game, a 17-3 Michigan victory the season following MSU's last Big Ten Championship season. "Here's the thing about Michigan State. As a former player, you just don't like Michigan State! "

Michael Taylor:

"I was the starter in the 1988 game at Michigan Stadium .... that was right after Demetrius Smith had thrown the 7 interceptions. We won 17-3, and were in control of the game pretty much the whole game. Tony Mandarich was gone after showing up in the 1987 game with 50 extra pounds of muscle ... we all know how that happened ....

"In the '89 game I thought I'd be back on the field from my shoulder injury, and I told Bo I was ready to play, but Elvis Grbac started. That game was at MSU and Michigan won it 10-7, despite getting stopped on the 1 yard line and having a field goal blocked.

"So as a former player, here's the thing about Michigan State. You just don't like Michigan State!

"As a player, when you are on the team, and maybe especially for a guy like me who came to U-M from Cincinnati, it's a rivalry game along with Ohio State and Notre Dame. It's on a par with those other two games, and we liked nothing better than beating a rival just 60 miles up the road. But for me as a player it was no more than that, and no less. I had no particular hatred to MSU or anything like that. It was just a rivalry game, a game to point to as a red letter game. The '88 game was a great game, a great game to play in, and it was great to beat one of Michigan's rivals.

"But as a former player living in the state of Michigan, it is more than that. I work in Detroit, and last week I had to listen to all the MSU alums running at the mouth before the game was played, saying they'd gotten control of the state and all that. And then we played the game and we all see what happened. Here is the fact -- MSU had never won anything going into that game, and they still haven't. They have won one Big Ten Championship in what, 40 years?

"So, I grew up in Cincinnati, but now, working in Detroit, I have more of a feeling about the Michigan State game ... can you tell?"